Santiago de Cuba - Live Recordings From 1992

In 1992, 4 years before Ry Cooder recorded Buena Vista Social Club in Havana, French journalist François Jouffa went to the birthplace of Son and recorded some little-known bands with an old Nagra tape recorder. The playing and feeling is great and relaxed and warm and you feel like you're there partying in the Cuba's country East.

François has recorded so-called ethnic music in Sri Lanka, China, Tibet, Vietnam, Nepal, Mexico, Peru, Bali and Korea but these Cuban recordings show what an amazingly developed musical culture the country has.

2308CD Cut 5 – ‘Santiago de Cuba’Calixto CardenasPub Not SpecFrémeaux and Associés FA 5389Various – ‘Santiago de Cuba: Cuba 1992, Live Recordings’5:17(Accelerating piece in praise of the birthplace of Son – ‘the beautiful splendour of the beaches, your beautiful palm groves, your love and warmth.’ Cesar hechavarria solos on tres and the voices of Reynaldo Prado of Quinteto de la trova)

2315CD Cut 1 – ‘Pensando en ti’ (Thinking of You)Nico SaquitoPub Not SpecFrémeaux and Associés FA 5389Various – ‘Santiago de Cuba: Cuba 1992, Live Recordings’6:42(Tres start and rich baritone voices harmonise as Septeto Turquino sing Nico Saquito ballad that says, ‘I thought this new lover would keep you out of my mind and ease my pain but the caresses of a stranger are killing me because they are not yours.’)

2339CD Cut 6 – ‘Julia Florida’Agustin BarriosPub Not SpecWhich Way Music, distributed in Australia by www.fusemusic.com.auLeonard Grigoryan – ‘Solo’4:50 (Australian comp and perf: Leonard plays delicate instrumental that Barrios wrote for a student of his named Julia. Barrios was one of the first to record classical music on guitar, in 1909 and he is revered in Paraguay as one of the greatest musicians of all time. John Williams said of him – ‘As a guitarist/composer, Barrios is the best of the lot. His music is better formed, it’s more poetic, it’s more everything! And it’s more of all those things in a timeless way.’)

2344 CD Cut 2 – ‘Allemande from Partita #2 for Solo Violin in D minor’J.S. BachPub Not SpecGreentrax Recordings CD TRAX376 www.greentrax.comTony McManus – ‘Mysterious Boundaries’4:51(Pioneer of playing Scottish tunes on acoustic guitar from his first Classical guitar album, here with the opening movement of the second partita, thought by some to have been written in memory of Bach’s first wife Maria Barbera)

2352CD Cut 5 – ‘Na Bimaka Te’ (Don’t Go Out)KatelePub Not SpecSterns Music STCD 3063 www.sternsmusic.comOrchestra Super Mazembe – ‘Mazembe @45 RPM, Vol. 1’Seven minute excerpt(Classical-like electric guitar intro then men’s sweet voices in song about woman who is so beset by rivals for her husband’s attention that she’s afraid to leave her house for people talking about her)